//------------------------------//
// The Chase 
// Story: Nightmares Over Equestria 
// by Ignimbrite 
//------------------------------//

The guard charged around the corner to find two foals and a stallion bolting away from the building.  He extended both wingblades and flew up and over them, landing directly in their path.  All three skidded to a stop.

Hat Trick jumped between the guard and the foals.

"Run!"

"But what about?..."

"I'll hold him off.  Just go!"

The guard was already swinging his wingblades.  Hat Trick reared up, the blades just barely passing under his hooves where his neck had been only a moment ago.  He turned around and whipped a smoke bomb at the guard's face.  Just as he turned again to run, another pegasus guard landed in front of him.

Thankfully, the two kids had already disappeared.





Luna set down her mother and stepped out of the cell.  She turned to pick up a suppression ring from the cabinet on the wall, when she felt an aura of magic charging up.  

Just as she turned back, her mother smirked.

"You two fell for that far too easily."  

With that, she disappeared.





Obsidian and Feldspar ran through the streets, keeping their eyes out for guards.

"What do we do now?"

"We head to the castle.  That's what he said."

"What good would that do?  We don't have the crystal with us."

"But we know where they are.  Let's go."

Before they could continue, a pair of unicorn guards stopped them in the square right next to a silver statue.

"Halt."  The commander eyed them suspiciously.  "What would you know about crystals and the castle."

Before they could fabricate a good answer, a record player in the shop window answered instead.

"What is this with you, abandoning your princesses?"

They looked to the record player, but  the passersby near it were only looking at it in confusion.  A windup toy in the shop across the street spoke to them.

"You are traitors to Equestria.  You are dishonored.  By Equestrian law, banishment would be an act of mercy towards you."

The soldier blasted the toy, but it kept speaking.

"Truth lives..."

They turned back to the foals, but the foals had already taken off.

"Stop!"  

Just as they had the foals cornered, purple flames erupted from the street between them and their target.  In an instant, they died away, revealing a zebra with ancient tribal markings across his face.  The zebra waved a hoof, causing a brief arc of flames to isolate himself from the guards.  He then turned to the foals.

"I just got the signal from Hat Trick, but the castle's too heavily guarded to get in.  Go back to the hideout.  You'll have to use the mines."

With that, he turned back to the guard and swung his right front leg to the side, causing a sword to appear out of nowhere, already attached to his hoof.

Before the guards could draw their own blades, the statue turned around the corner and bucked one of them into the other.

Obsidian and Feldspar flew back towards the hideout.





"We haven't found anything yet.  It's all just random junk."

"Hey!  I made most of that 'junk' myself."

The pegasus guards were going through Hat Trick's saddlebags while Hat Trick himself sat hoofcuffed beside them.

Between them lay four smoke bombs, five decks of cards, two magic wands, a book, a candle, and enough other assorted junk to fill a garage sale.  They did not find the missing crystal anywhere.

One of the guards dug around deeper, then pulled his nose up and grinned.  

"A traveling stagepony, you said?"  As Hat Trick nodded, the guard reached into the bag in triumph.  "Well how do you explain this?"

Hat Trick raised an eyebrow.

"A cuckoo clock?"

The guard looked at the contraption he was holding aloft.  "No.  Not that, but there is a secret compartment in here."

He started pulling out other items from the hidden pouch inside the bag. 

"A camera, a water bottle, a rubber chicken, two more sets of cards...  Wha...  What in Tartarus?  My wingblades?"

He extended his wing and looked at it.  Sure enough, he was disarmed.

"How?"

"I already told you, they're magic saddlebags.  Magic.  I assume you're familiar with the concept."

"Watch your tone."  The other one started nosing though the hidden compartment.

"What else is?...  Wh?...  My HELMET?"





Just before Obsidian and Feldspar could reach the hideout, something tackled Obsidian out of the air.  Feldspar looked down to see another Day Guard wrestling with her brother.

She sorely wished she had a horn to zap him with.  Lacking one, she did the next best thing she could think of.  She tucked in her wings and pulled into a nosedive, knocking the wind out of him with her front hooves.

The guard got up as Obsidian scrambled away.  He extended a wingblade.

"We've all had just about enough of this.  Now tell us where the missing crystal is."

"It's back at the outhouse.  We didn't have time to take it."

"Enough lies."

"IT'S THE TRUTH!"

As the guard clamped his hooves over his ears and the two turned to run away, Feldspar turned to her brother.

"Are you sure you're not an alicorn?"

Obsidian shot her a sour look.  "Don't you start that."

"So what was that then?"

"I was screaming.  Crimson Red and Broken Microphone do that trick in their songs all the time."

"You didn't sound like them at all."

"I'm still practicing, okay."

Before they got to the end of the alley, the guard recovered and blocked their path.

This time, Feldspar provided the acoustic defense, albeit now with pitch to match the volume.

As they stepped around the guard, who was curled up in a ball with his hooves and wings over his ears, and Obsidian rubbed his ears with his wings, she grinned.

"That was screaming."

They stepped into an old apartment building and climbed down into the basement, where the entrance to the cave was hidden behind a large wardrobe.  Clumsy greeted them.

"I heard you screaming back there.  Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, at least it will be when my ears recover.  I feel sorry for that guard though.  He got it right in the face."

They all walked through the tunnels together.

"I could have sworn I heard a male pony using the royal Canterlot voice just before that all started.  Are you sure you're not?..."

"I'm not an alicorn, alright," he interrupted.  

"He's just really bad at screaming."

As Obsidian gave an unamused look to his sister, Clumsy nodded.  "So what happened back there?"

"We found 'em, but they got Hat Trick.  Rafiki and some of the others helped us get away."  He kicked a pebble.  "I don't even know why they were chasing us.  It's not like we had the crystal.  Hat Trick put it in his bag."

"Uhhh... Obsidian?  Are you sure about that?"

Obsidian gave a confused glance to his sister, then lifted his wing and opened the bag underneath.

Inside the bag was a glowing crystal.